Telecommunications Management

To its credit, the Interior Department has undertaken several telecommunications cost-savings initiatives that have yielded significant savings and helped to reduce the agency's investment in telecommunications--which now totals more than $62 million annually. Interior, however, has yet to consolidate and optimize telecommunications resources with its bureaus and field locations. At the four sites that GAO visited, telecommunications resources were often not consolidated or shared, and bureaus and offices were paying thousands of dollars annually for unnecessary services. Meanwhile, Interior and the Agriculture Department (USDA) may be missing opportunities to save millions of dollars by not sharing telecommunications resources. The two agencies have a two-year-old agreement to identify and act on sharing opportunities, but little has been done to implement this agreement and only limited savings have been realized. Although Interior and USDA now plan to spend up to several hundred million dollars to acquire separate radio systems during the next eight years, they have not determined the extent to which they can reduce costs by sharing radio equipment and services.

GAO noted that: (1) to its credit, Interior has undertaken a number of telecommunications cost-savings initiatives that have produced significant financial savings and helped reduce the Department's more than $62-million annual telecommunications investment; (2) however, Interior is not systematically identifying and acting on other opportunities to consolidate and optimize telecommunications resources within and among its bureaus or its 2,000-plus field locations; (3) the cost-savings initiatives that have been undertaken have generally been done on an isolated and ad hoc basis, and have not been replicated throughout the Department; (4) GAO did not review consolidation and sharing opportunities at all of Interior's field locations; (5) however, at the four sites GAO visited, GAO found that telecommunications resources were often not consolidated or shared, and bureaus and offices were paying thousands of dollars annually for unnecessary services; (6) Interior does not know to what extent similar telecommunications savings may exist at its other offices because it lacks the basic information necessary to make such determinations; (7) Interior and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) may also be missing opportunities to save millions of dollars by not sharing telecommunications resources; (8) even though the Departments have a 2-year old agreement to identify and act on sharing opportunities, little has been done to implement this agreement and, accordingly, only limited savings have been realized; and (9) moreover, while Interior and the Forest Service currently plan to collectively spend up to several hundred million dollars to acquire separate radio systems over the next 8 years, the Departments have not jointly determined the extent to which they can reduce these costs by sharing radio equipment and services.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Team: Phone: